[K12OSN] Loosing access to master password

[Mike Rambo]

On Thu, 2004-05-20 at 09:03, Alan A Hodson wrote:
> Hi gang
> 
> The unthinkable happened. Somehow I lost the root password to a new 
> system, and I am facing the daunting task of having to reinstall 
> everything... No files need to be saved, BUT, the question arises, 
> what if the system is hacked and your root password changed? What 
> security options are there? - I am thinking a boot disk with root 
> login with no pwd or some such emergency app, something like the 
> Install OSX CD in Macs, where one of the choices is change passwords 
> (being linux based, one of our gurus ought to be able to reverse 
> engineer the process...)

So long as you haven't set up a password to prevent getting into single
user mode you should be able to just do 'linux single' at the boot
prompt. When you get booted up do a 'su' which should make you root with
no password requested and then change the password in the usual way
(passwd root).


-- 
Mike Rambo
mrambo at lsd.k12.mi.us

Hurry! Hire a teenager while they still know everything!!!